Politics and policy

delivering effective social policy

breadcrumb navigation:

Homelessness

Society is undoubtedly strengthened when everyone has access to good quality, affordable housing. However, it has become much harder for people to access and maintain the right kind of housing.

Lifehouses such as New Direction provide vulnerable people with more than just a roof over their heads." Beverly Egan - Public Affairs Advisor for Local Authorities

The cost and competitiveness of the private housing market can be prohibitive for people. There have also been significant cuts to the social security budget and other public services that can prevent people from becoming homeless, such as mental health and addiction services.

Although this does not tell the whole story, what we do know is that there has been a rise in all forms of homelessness in recent years.

The Salvation Army has worked with people experiencing homelessness for over 150 years. In partnership with our Homelessness Services Unit, the Public Affairs Unit works to ensure that our services, including our Lifehouses (residential homelessness services), are able to offer a vital safety net to people who at that point in time, for whatever reason, are unable to access or maintain their own home.

Video of pauls_story_homelessness

Paul's story

After years of drug use and a prison sentence, Paul found himself homeless. We helped him to rebuild his life, with a surprising ending!

In addition to providing people with housing, we aim to work with all the relevant stakeholders, including our service users, to ensure that our policy and advocacy work is person-centred and up-to-date, learning from new approaches in the addictions, mental health and criminal justice sectors.

We also work with both national and local government to influence public policy; advocating for a comprehensive approach to all forms of homelessness, which takes into account people’s individual circumstances and wider structural factors, including the current state of the housing market, as well as the needs of the local communities of which our service users are a part.

In doing so, we aim to ensure that homelessness continues to be recognised as an important social issue, which, if we all work together, can be avoided and resolved.